Soapbox Corner - with PembrokeshireSport.co.uk

We all make mistakes, but some are more costly than others

“Put a gun to his head and pull the trigger”. . . .

. . . this is just one of many comments posted on public social networking pages since last Saturday.

Are these remarks aimed at a child abuser? No.
Are they intended for a Rwandan perpetrator of machete-inflicted genocide? No.
They are aimed at a guy who apparently made a sports refereeing mistake. More controversially, he made a decision which several experts and ‘experienced’ people happen to have said subsequently was a correct decision.

Q. How can such a judgement, an apparent injustice indeed, come about?

A. Because the legislators of this particular sport have a serious job to do:- to prevent as many young rugby players as possible from spending the rest of their lives in wheelchairs as a consequence of neck and spinal injuries, while keeping the sport the way people love it, with strong tackles, clean scrums and with meaningfully competitive rucks & mauls, and without masses of body-armour.

If Rugby administrators do NOT have the appropriate laws and directives in place, the personal injury lawyers will eventually force the game into some bland version of Touch-Rugby. It just happens that last weekend, these laws and directives, coupled with a marginal playing incident, resulted in a wrong, split-second, refereeing discussion, or at best a questionable one.

But when a six foot two, fifteen and a half stone player goes low to tackle another player around the legs (a player who is four inches shorter and a stone and a half lighter) and the first player then decides to start to stand vertically while still holding the other’s legs (however lightly), then the laws of gravity and angular-momentum WILL have their say. A momentary misjudgement by the big guy.

Any officiating referee, who sees the resultant body-positions, would have no option but to react. The consequence was a decision made with Paddy O'Brien’s 2010 directive, regarding the now infamous law10.4 (j), ringing in the referee’s consciousness. ("Lifting a player from the ground and dropping or driving that player into the ground whilst that player's feet are still off the ground such that the player's head and/or upper body come into contact with the ground is dangerous play. . .” ) ‘Referees are instructed to respond to such an offence by thinking first of a red card.’

The referee-selection for this particular match, by the IRB RWC, was also a mistake. The passport my well say ‘Irish’, but it was highly predictable from the outset, that the slightest hint of a controversial call would spark a whole heap of vitriol regarding his mixed-nationality parentage.

“BURN HIM!!”, “Kill the ***** ****”, “Shoot the ******”

Q. Is this a matter of life and death?

A. Yes! It is not just about the life and death of a referee, but about the lives of players in the future who might spend the remainder of their time sucking their meals up through a straw. It’s about the deaths of young men who can not face a future after becoming paraplegic or quadriplegic at the age of 18, and choose to end their days in a suicide clinic in Switzerland.

A tournament has been spoiled and a nation has had its sporting destiny and dreams snatched away, but the Welsh Nation is currently in possession of a great gift and asset: a young, exceptionally talented, fit, cohesive, well coached national rugby union team (who need a little more practice at kicking under pressure). A team made up of individuals whose maturity and professionalism belies their young years. A team with the youngest of skippers, who demonstrates a great example:- an ability to respect the referee in the worst of possible situations and to be a gentleman, an ability to 'suck-it-up' and get on with it.
An example that all sports fans would do well to learn from.